What drives engagement?

Student-led conferences build the kind of skills that serve children well for life. To prepare for the conferences, Parker kids reflect on what they have accomplished so far in the year, how they are doing, and what goals they have going forward - what challenges they want to set for themselves. Then they sit down with their parents and show them samples of their work, discussing how they rate themselves on things like cooperating with peers, or with organization.

Building this kind of thinking goes beyond the more passive scenario where only the teacher assesses.  It is empowering and motivating and it teaches students that how they perform is really up to their own initiative. 

"When students assess themselves, they hold themselves to a higher standard," asserts Daniel Pink in his latest book, To Sell Is Human.  Here is a great article about Pink's ideas, How Teachers Can Sell Love of Learning to Students. It speaks to what we are doing at Parker - finding ways to give students a keen drive to achieve. 

Our new friends are almost here!

We are waiting at the train station and are so excited for out visitors to arrive... 

And they did!  Everyone was united with a home stay family and all headed home for dinner and sleep.  No time for photos - Tomorrow - the first day at Parker! 

Our visitors are on their way!

Our ten student student-visitors and two teachers from St. Peter's School in Barcelona are on their way!  First stop, three days in Manhattan.  Language arts teacher Sarah Biondello will meet them at the airport and accompany them to museums, sightseeing and Spiderman.  On Sunday afternoon they will take the train to Albany where Parker families will meet them at the train station as they begin their home stays.

Students will attend classes for the week with their Parker sixth and seventh grade counterparts.  Special events: Welcome Assembly on Monday; potluck supper after school on Tuesday; field trip to the Capitol and State Museum on Wednesday; Bowling party on Thursday afternoon; Spring Sing and farewell party on Friday.  Students will spend the day with Parker families on Saturday and head home Sunday, March 24.  A whirlwind week for everyone - and a wonderful opportunity for cultural exchange, language practice, and new friendships!  Read more...

The human experience

Murry Jaros visited Parker yesterday and told his incredibly moving story of surviving during the Holocaust.  His wonderful gift to us was sharing his very personal and painful memories and also telling us about developing an iron will to survive at a young age.  Combined with hearing Francis Currey last week tell about his experiences leading to receiving the Medal of Honor, our middle school students have learned from these two people so much about life in 1944 and 1945 in Europe during World War II - and about what young people are capable of when faced with harrowing challenges. 

In an interview about his career as a history writer, author David McCullough says, "To write or understand history, you must try as best you can to put yourself in the shoes of those who lived in those other times... And in the end, it's the story that counts. I believe we need stories. They're an essential part of the human experience."

The stories told by Francis Currey and Murry Jaros brought the past to life at Parker.  It was our privilege to hear and is our responsibility to remember.

A good story

We had the privilege today of hearing Medal of Honor recipient Francis Currey speak about his experiences in the Battle of the Bulge in 1944-45.  He is pictured here with author Michael Collins who talked with Parker middle schoolers about finding different types of sources for research.  As a primary source for modern history, Mr. Currey was fascinating and a true hero, having defended a key bridge from German tanks with a group of seven infantrymen in Belgium.  Mr. Currey went back to Belgium in the '70's and encountered a German man who had been a soldier there at the time, forming a life-long friendship.  A moving story!

Students learned much about the writer, illustrator, and storyteller's craft from other guests Patrice Kindle, Sylvie Kantorovitz, Matt McElligott, Kent Busman, and our puppeteer favorite The Ivy Vine Players with Grian MacGregor.  There was a presentation from Market Block Books and everyone enjoyed the Used Book Sale.  A parade with a crazy cast of storybook characters rounded out a wonderful day.

See our Facebook page for more photos.

Move!

Moving!  It is so important for developing minds and overall health.  Here is a great article from Children and Nature Network: "Sitting is the New Smoking!"  Richard Louv says "A growing body of evidence indicates that children need far more activity, including unstructured play, to improve health, cognition and emotional well-being. Nature-based exercise appears to be especially effective."

Getting off our seats and onto our feet inside and out adds a priceless balance to our lives at Parker.  And it makes us smarter!

Maximizing the brain's ability to learn

K-1's performed their version of the Jan Brett story The Hat at assembly this morning.  They read the book, adapted it into a play, made their masks in art class, constructed a house and a hedgehog burrow, practiced and performed!  It's a great example of learning that is "doing" and that has great meaning for the students.  They had to work collaboratively, problem-solve and cooperate, master skills in reading, writing, and speaking, and to wrap it all up they had an appreciative audience of peers and parents.  Well done!

Dr. JoAnn Deak, who was here on Monday working with teachers and presenting a program for parents and educators, had this to say, "Every interaction a child has, during the course of a day, influences the adult that child will become.”  She confirmed how we teach by backing it up with the latest in neuroscience research and she challenged us to think about how to educate in today's overly visual world of technology.

JoAnn was, as one teacher put it, "perhaps the best presenter I have ever had the good fortune of hearing!"  She recommended this resource: the 92nd Street Y in Manhattan organized a forum of the 5 best brains in education today and have made the video free for the public on their website. 
http://www.92y.org/pclivecast

Many schools have asked parents and teachers to view each of the five 45 minute sections and then come to a discussion.  Sounds like a great idea!  

More about innovative learning

4th grade math students explore together how to draw 2D representations of 3D objects. Students can then make drawings from their own designs for others to try recreating.

K-1's all contributed to this story about an unlikely friendship between a bobcat and a cat at Parker.  They are going to turn their story into a book.

This article in MindShift, 7 Essential Principles of Innovative Learning expresses how we teach at Parker.  Author Katarina Schwartz pares it down to 7 elements that correspond exactly to what we call project based education or signature experiences.

1. Learners have to be at the center of what happens in the classroom.

2. Learning is a social practice and can’t happen alone.

3. Emotions are an integral part of learning.

4. Learners are different.

5. Students need to be stretched, but not too much.

6. Assessment should be for learning, not of learning.

      7. Learning needs to be connected across disciplines.

I would take it one step further than she does, adding "8. Learning should result in purposeful action."  This concept includes projects that have a purpose beyond the school's  walls - learning that expands into the world beyond the classroom.  That is what gives the depth and meaning to activities that will excite students' imaginations and passions.

Entrepreneurial learning

The Global One-Room Schoolhouse: John Seely Brown (Highlights from his "Entrepreneurial Learner" Keynote at DML2012) from DML Research Hub on Vimeo.

What does it take to cultivate entrepreneurial learners?  Visiting scholar at USC and independent co-chairman of the Deloitte Center for the Edge, learning innovator, John Seely Brown ruminates on play and how to develop a questioning disposition.  This is a very cool animated video of his ideas.

At Parker we practice critique and purposeful action among other ways to get kids to "play" with ideas and explore the results - here is another way to think about it!

Work of value

A preschooler's drawing of tromping along the walkway during Muddy Boots Club.

"What do you think is inside the earth?" Ideas generated by K-1 students at the start of a study of rocks and minerals. 

2-3's exult in their museum display at the Historical Society.

4-5's perfecting scripts for their history makers displays.

7th grade math: write about how you figured out the problem.

Once a student creates work of value -- work that is sophisticated, accurate, important and beautiful -- that student is never the same. When you have done quality work, deeper work, you know you are always capable of doing more.  ~ Ron Berger

Read this article: Deeper Learning: Highlighting Student Work.  It is by educator and Expeditionary Learning's Chief Program Officer, Ron Berger.  Ron has come to Parker twice to work with our teachers on critique and displaying children's work.

If you watch the fascinating short video in the middle of this article, you will get a great vision of how critique works.  It is a way of investing students in keeping at something until it is just right.  An empowering concept!  And one that lets them know just how capable they are.